Wedding message - Daniel and Paula

The following message contains references to Song of Solomon 8:6, Ephesians 5:25, 22-23, Revelation 21:2, 6 and the hymn "And can it be" that were read or sung during the service.  Their full text is at the bottom of this document.

Daniel and Paula, you have made it.  In the midst of a season of COVID-19, personal struggles and political uncertainty, you have come to this place to be united to each other, to make binding promises of loyalty and faithfulness to one another.  But how is it that we dare to make such promises to another person in such an uncertain time?  Promises imply a confidence in the future; that we will have the resources, the ability, and the desire to do what we say that we will do, and that the situation in which we will find ourselves in the days to come will allow us to fulfill these promises.  But why would we make such weighty promises and how can we be confident that we can fulfill them when so much around us is in flux?

One of the reasons we make such weighty promises is that love demands them.  In passage that we just read from the Song of Solomon we hear one of the lovers demanding of the other, “Set me like a seal on your heart.”  “I want a permanent place in your affections”, the lover says, “right at the center of your soul, with uncontested supremacy over any other earthly love you may have.”  Why did they demand this?  “Because love is as strong as death.”  Extravagant language like this is commonplace in describing love; just read the Valentine’s day cards that have been sold this last week and you’ll find plenty of similar language.

Love demands this kind of language, but we know in our hearts that our love isn’t nearly strong enough to defeat death.  There is only one love that is this strong, and that is the love of God the Father, who raised Jesus Christ from death to eternal life.  Because we are made in the image of God, your love for each other is patterned after the love that God the Father has for His Son and for His people, and so is described in the language that is appropriate for the love of God, even if we only approach a love like this by the grace of God.  

The lover in Song of Solomon goes on to say “jealousy is as fierce as the grave.  Its flashes are … the very flame of the Lord.”  A jealous affection is one that claims an exclusive right to the corresponding affection in the beloved.  We tend to think of jealousy as a bad emotion, for it is commonly associated with a husband who falsely suspects that his wife is being unfaithful to him, or with a child who is jealous of the attention a new baby is receiving from their parents.  But proper jealousy isn’t suspicious, nor does it demand things to which it has no right.  A good jealousy is a refusal to share with someone else something that should be kept for one’s self alone.

God’s jealousy, described in the Song of Solomon as “the flame of the Lord”, is his jealous requirement that we respond to his love for us by worshipping him alone and his refusal to share that worship with anyone or anything else.   This may feel rather uncomfortable to people who want the right to offer themselves in worship to other things besides God, but it is God’s right as our Creator and Lord to demand our fidelity to him, and, because your love for each other is patterned on God’s love for us, it is your right to require of each other the fidelity that you will be promising as you make your vows.  Though the world will call you in a thousand ways to share the intimacy and loyalty that you are promising each other with a third party, whether it be a coworker, a family member, or the images on a screen, that must never be allowed, for like God's love for you, your love for each other is a jealous love that is never to be shared.

But this sounds awfully difficult and constraining, and it is.  Good things are.  If you want to play good music on the piano, you can’t simply hit any piano key whenever you want; that would be the sound of a cat walking on the piano.  To play a piano well, you have to work hard to learn how to press the right piano keys at the right time in the right way.  If you want to play soccer well, you can’t simply kick the ball wherever you want whenever it comes to you; that would be what a kindergartner would do in an AYSO game.  To play soccer well, you have to work hard to learn how to kick the ball in the right direction in the right way at the right time.  Good athletes and good musicians know that to do their craft well, they must work hard to submit themselves to the requirements of that craft.  Likewise, if you want to do any relationship well, and especially if you want to do marriage well, you must work hard to learn how to submit yourself to the requirements of the relationship.

In the passage from the book of Ephesians that we just read, God shows us how we are to submit ourselves as husbands and wives to the requirements of marriage as he ordained it.  Here the apostle Paul tells us that the marriage relationship is patterned after the relationship of Christ and his church, where the husband is to imitate Jesus Christ, and the wife to imitate the church.

Husbands, as they imitate Jesus Christ, are to love their wives the same way that Christ loved the church.  The first thing that needs to be said here is that no man is an adequate imitation of Jesus Christ in his love for his wife.  We are all like kindergartners dressing up in their dad’s clothes, with huge shoes that barely stay on our feet and a shirt that hangs down on us to the floor.  Jesus surpasses us.  There is no way that we will ever be able to love our wives as abundantly and sacrificially as Jesus loves the church, yet it is the standard that we are called to strive after by the grace of God and with the encouragement of our wives.

In seeking to measure up to this standard, we husbands must strive to submit ourselves to God’s purpose for us, as Jesus submitted to God’s purpose for him in the Garden of Gethsemane.  There, as he faced the prospect of being brutally beaten and killed so that he might bear for his church the punishment for their sins, Jesus had to wrestle to submit to God’s purpose for him.  While God will never call us to suffer for our wives to the extent that Jesus suffered for his church, we will likely find ourselves at times struggling to imitate Jesus by saying to God “not my will but what you will” as he calls us to love and serve our wives.  Often that struggle will be over small things, like being willing to simply listen to her talk without trying to fix anything or being willing to get up at 2:00 AM to care for a cranky baby.  

But whether the issue is relatively minor or a major family crisis, it is your responsibility, Daniel, in every situation to love Paula as Christ loved the church, by saying to God, “not what I will, but what you will,” when he calls upon you to provide her with the good that she needs from you.  This self-giving love that we sang about in the hymn "And can it be", where Christ left his throne to die for us is to be your model, as you give of yourself that Paula might be set free from her burdens even as Christ delivered us from the burden of sin and death.

And Paula, as you imitate the church, you are to submit to Daniel’s leadership in your marriage as though you were submitting to Jesus Christ.  Of course, Daniel is not Jesus Christ, and sometimes following his lead may not feel very much like following Jesus.  It may feel at times more like dancing with a partner who keeps on tripping over your feet.  But Daniel is the partner you have chosen (and God has given you) for the dance of marriage, and your job is not to take over the lead from him when he falls short of what you desire, but to strengthen and encourage him as he seeks to grow into the role that he has been given in your marriage.

The two of you are not alone in pursuing this, for your friends here who have joined you in this ceremony have committed themselves to supporting you and Daniel as you strive to make your marriage as good as it can be.  They, along with your church family, are like coaches for a football team, ready when you come off the field after a difficult and exhausting battle to strengthen, encourage, and equip you to return to the field to fight together for the welfare of your family.  For you are never to be each other’s adversaries.  Your true adversary is the devil, and it is against Satan and his allies that you will need to fight to preserve and strengthen your relationship with each other and the health of your family.

And these things are worth preserving.  Marriage is a thing to be honored and preserved, for God gave it to us as both an illustration of how He relates to us and the means by which a strong loving environment can be created in which children can be born and raised.  A family should be the place where children receive the loving care of their mother and father, who love each other and are committed to the welfare of their children.  Each of you will bring your own strengths to the table in this process, and the contributions that each of you make will be needed.

But child-raising is not, by God’s grace, a one-way street, where you children take and take and take, leaving you empty.  Each of you will find as you raise children that there are joys in the process that you could not have imagined ahead of time.  You will learn important things about yourselves, each other, and God, that you could have learned in no other way.

Beyond what you learn from raising children, you will learn things about God as you work to preserve and strengthen your relationship.  We all know that God is faithful to us; we learn something about what that means by learning to live faithfully with each other.  We all know that God loves unlovely people; we learn a little of what that means by learning to love each other when we are not at our best.  And we husbands learn just how much God has condescended to us by choosing to be called “Father” (not “parent” and not “the Force”) when we compare his perfect love, wisdom, knowledge, and power with our own very imperfect displays of these virtues. (Our wives may learn this lesson as well by looking at us).

But more important still, in marriage we learn beautiful things about the love that God has for us and the wonderful future that He makes available to us.  When Jesus taught people, he repeatedly referred to a great wedding feast to which his people were invited, and in the passage in Revelation which we read  it is very briefly described.  There the author of Revelation said, “And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”  This is the point of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection; to make for himself a holy city, namely his church, to be his bride.  This city is further described in another passage as “having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel.”  She is seen coming down from God to be presented to the groom, who is Jesus.

So, what we saw today, as you, Paula, were brought down the aisle by your father to Daniel was not merely a nice tradition, it was a true (but small and limited) representation of what we as believers can look forward to at the culmination of history.  In your beauty, Paula, you represent to us what the church will be like on that day, while your father represented God as he brought you to Daniel, who represents Jesus.  At the risk of stretching the analogy a bit, we might even say that your brother-in-law represented the Holy Spirit.  What you have shown us here is a tiny foretaste of what awaits all believers in heaven, a celebration filled with beauty, joy, and anticipation nothing at all like our cartoon image of bored angels standing in clouds strumming harps.

And this, by God’s grace, will be just the beginning.  God hasn’t brought you this far to say, “good job and good luck!” and then give you a push into the future and wave farewell.  He, more than any of us here, will be with you in all that you do.  He will be in your joys to deepen them, and in your struggles to make them fruitful.  To echo the apostle Paul, I am sure of this, that he who has begun a good work in both of you in this wedding will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.  Until then, press on in anticipation.  Receive the good that God gives you with gratitude and use it faithfully for His good purposes.  Receive the challenges he sets before you with hope, knowing that with the challenges God will supply water from the spring of life to sustain your souls and that He works everything (even the tough stuff) for the good of people like yourselves who love Him and are called according to His purpose.  

God will be with you wherever you go, and we will come alongside as opportunities permit, to help you make your marriage and family one that glorifies God, brings you delight, and reveals to us something of the wonder of God’s goodness toward us.

Congregational hymn - And can it be

And can it be that I should gain

An int'rest in the Savior's blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain?

For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me?

Refrain:

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me!

He left His Father's throne above,

So free, so infinite His grace;

Emptied Himself of all but love,

And bled for Adam's helpless race;

'Tis mercy all, immense and free;

For, O my God, it found out me. [Refrain] 

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

Fast bound in sin and nature's night;

Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free;

I rose, went forth and followed Thee. [Refrain]

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in Him is mine!

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach th'eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own. [Refrain]

Scripture

Set me as a seal upon your heart,

as a seal upon your arm,

for love is strong as death,

jealousy is fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire,

the very flame of the Lord.

Song of Solomon 8:6

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior

Ephesians 5:25: 22-23

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband… To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

Revelation 21:2, 6b

Lynn's status - COVID 19

As of 1/4 9:30 PM

Life is returning to normal.  While Lynn is still on the oxygen at times, she can come off of it to work in the kitchen and can do other tasks with the oxygen.  She still gets tired more quickly than before, but it seems just a matter of time before her energy level returns to normal.  I'm going to stop updates here, as I don't think that there's anything more that needs special attention.  If things change, I'll get word out.  Thanks to everyone who has been tracking Lynn's health, praying for her, and offering assistance; you all have been a great encouragement to us.

As of 1/4 9:00 AM

Lynn got good sleep without the oxygen concentrator and woke with blood oxygen at about 93.  After resuming use of the concentrator, it's back up to 97.  She ate breakfast at our normal place and seems to be doing well overall.

As of 1/3 10:00 PM

Lynn's blood oxygen got up to 98% briefly, even at setting 2 of the oxygen concentrator.  I expect that we'll try removing the oxygen tomorrow and see how she does.  She's started to get a little stir crazy and has begun doing a few things around the house, which is excellent.

As of 1/3 11:00 AM

Lynn woke up somewhat draggy, with lower blood oxygen, but within an hour it was up to a good level.  She's able to eat normally at this point, and feels like her progress is slow, but discernable.

As of 1/2 7:25 PM:

Lynn's blood oxygen was up to 97%, so we turned down the oxygen concentrator from 2.5 to 2.0.  She is eating normally, but food tastes "off" (not surprisingly).  Otherwise, she's doing well.  Thanks to Paula Clevenger, who delivered a large El Pollo Loco meal, which will give us a few days of leftovers.  She, Dana Chisholm and family members have kept us well supplied.

Another note from some friends of ours:

We got our test results back last night and we too are Covid positive. Bob is struggling the most on account of his other diagnoses, and while not seriously in trouble, as in shortness of breath, pain, etc...his pulse ox is also not keeping up. So this morning we came to ER on the recommendation of the Kaiser nurse...and we’re here now. He’s on O2 at the moment and being worked up for all other things as they usually do. His other main symptoms are achiness when the fever rises, but none higher than 100.8 so far and his asthmatic cough...truly he feels he has the flu with asthma exacerbation.  But the numbers say otherwise. We do hope to get some treatment help before leaving today but will keep you posted.

Sorry to lay this on you when you are concerned for Lynn...but Bob wanted to reach out for prayer support from the group as well.

PS for Grace group...Bob is now in hospital. They found patchy double pneumonia and a blood clot in one lung. He is being moved to Kaiser Irvine tonight as there were no beds in Anaheim. He feels pretty well, and is glad to be able to sleep in a proper bed tonight, once in Irvine. Thanks so much for your prayers.

Lillian

As of 1/2 9:15 AM:

Lynn had a decent night's sleep on oxygen, woke refreshed, had a normal breakfast.  Temperature of 98.4, blood oxygen 96.  All in all, looking quite good (except that the dog didn't want to come home from his walk).

As of 1/1 4:30 PM:

Lynn is home with home oxygen, antibiotics and steroids.

As of 1/1 12:10 PM:

St. Jude's is working on setting up home oxygen for Lynn.  It is possible that she will be discharged today, but that isn't certain at the moment.

As of 1/1 7:45 AM:

Lynn had a decent night's sleep (with some help from a painkiller).  Her fever seems to be gone and the headache with it, which is really nice.  During the night her blood oxygen went low and she was put on oxygen support but that was removed before morning.  It is painful for her to inhale too deeply.

As of 12/31 7:00 PM:

Pneumonia seems to be responding to a round of steroids and antibiotics, now she's being monitored.

As of 12/31 6:30 PM:

Hospitals are not known for being great places for a good night's sleep; pray that she sleeps well anyhow and is really rested in the morning - this has been difficult for her lately even at home.

As of 12/31 5:00 PM:

Lynn is in her room and feels better after having eaten something.  Her blood oxygen was measured at 94, which is considerably higher than it was this morning.

As of 12/31 2:30 PM:

A room has been designated for Lynn and they're preparing to move her into it.

As of 12/31 12:00 PM:

The doctor reports that x-rays indicate that Lynn may have some pneumonia.

As of 12/31 11:00 AM:

Lynn will be admitted to St. Jude's when they can get a room for her.  The ER is very crowded. 

As of 12/31 9:00 AM:

I took Lynn to the Emergency Room at St. Jude's this morning.  Her blood oxygen level was too low and wasn't coming up.  She had no fever when admitted, and had been able to eat most of a breakfast of two eggs and a slice of toast.  Her cough continues to bother her and she continues to feel lousy, but she managed the preparation well.  No other symptoms we could see.

Merry Christmas 2020

 For many of us, this Christmas season has been marked by a painful loss of traditions that highlighted the season in years past.  Gatherings with family or friends are either difficult or impossible and many concerts and other community celebrations have either been cancelled, or else were livestreamed to be "celebrated" at home on one's couch with no real connection with those with whom we are purportedly celebrating.  Those of us whose jobs have been labeled "non-essential" may have found that limited finances prevent them from buying the gifts they long to give.  And some of us may have lost people we cared about to COVID-19.  Add to all this the recent spikes in COVID-19 cases and deaths and the political and social turmoil which have characterized 2020, and it can be hard to say "Merry Christmas!" with any enthusiasm, let alone look forward to a "Happy New Year" in 2021.

But if we look at the Christmas story as told in Luke 1-2 (which we have been reading this month as part of Grace's Scripture reading plan), we see a picture that resembles our situation more than we might have thought.  Chapter 2 begins with an imperious decree from a distant ruler (does this sound familiar?) that everyone was required to travel to their ancestral hometown to be counted as a part of a census.  For Mary and Joseph, this could not have been a welcome demand, with Mary being so close to term.  If they knew their Bible, they might also have remembered that God did not always approve of a king demanding a census of his people (see 2 Samuel 24).  Nevertheless Joseph and Mary did what was required of them and made the trip from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem to join the mass of people who had all been forced by Caesar's command to make the same trip.  While Mary's cousin Elizabeth had delivered her baby three months earlier at home surrounded by family and close friends (Luke 1:57-58), Mary delivered her baby in the only place they could find, an animal stall, isolated from all of their friends and family.  And when they went to Jerusalem to fulfill the requirements of the Law regarding the birth of a child, the prophet Simeon warned them that Jesus was a sign that would be rejected by many and that a sword would pierce Mary's own heart (Luke 2:34-35).  He was joined by the prophetess Anna, who spoke to those who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem (Luke 2:38), which would not turn out at all as expected for those who thought that it meant Jerusalem's liberation from Roman rule.

And yet, the message that the shepherds brought from the angels who visited them to Mary and Joseph was one of "good news of great joy" (Luke 2:10).  Under the burdensome decrees of an unjust ruler, in an animal stall in a strange town, away from family and friends, with the prospect of alienation and pain in their future, Mary and Joseph were still to know great joy, for to them (and to us) was born a Savior who is Christ the Lord.  This Lord, they would discover, would not overthrow their unjust ruler to take his throne, nor would he save them from loneliness, hostility, and persecution.  Instead he would give them joy beyond all these things; the joy of the resurrection (see Luke 24:50-53).  Mary expressed it in her song in Luke 1:46-55, the shepherds voiced it in Luke 2:20, and Simeon spoke of it in Luke 2:29-32.  God was becoming one of us in the person of His Son, who would save us from sin and all suffering by transforming them through His resurrection power into eternal life and a joy that will make all the hurt that we have ever endured seem insignificant in comparison.  Oppression, poverty, suffering and death may burden us, as they did Jesus, but if we recognize what Jesus has accomplished for us in His resurrection, they will lose their sting because through the resurrection God has promised to work all these burdens for our good and His glory (see Romans 8:28-29).

So if we find ourselves struggling with loneliness, oppression or fear, we can be assured that, far from being experiences that are alien to Christmas, they were there at its inception.  But joy was there too, a joy that God intends for us to experience as well.  God wants us to be firmly convinced, as the first disciples were, that no matter what trials we endure in this life, if we rest in the resurrection power of Jesus to transform them, they will in the end become beautiful trophies of His grace that will bring us great joy.  If this is our confidence, then we will be able to truly and sincerely wish each other a Merry Christmas, for this is the day that God gave us Jesus, who would turn all of our sin, sorrow and suffering into joy, and a Happy New Year, for this is another year in which we have an opportunity to participate in the resurrection work that Jesus is doing in and through us for His glory and our good.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Galatians 4 - my attempt to translate/paraphrase it in contemporary English.

I tell you that if a young child inherits an estate, he has no more authority over it than a slave even though it all belongs to him.  Instead, he is under the authority of people appointed to care for him and the estate until he reaches maturity.  So also, when we were spiritual children, we were under the authority of the world's basic rules for human behavior.  But when the right time had come, God sent his Son to be born like one of us, born of a human mother, under the authority of God's basic rules.  The Son was sent to emancipate us from our slavery to these rules so that we could be adopted as God's children.  Now that you are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, so you, like the Son, can call out to him, "Daddy, Father!".  Instead of being a slave, you are now also a son, and because of the work of God's Son, our Champion, you also are one of God's heirs.

 

Before you knew God, you were slaves to things which are not really gods at all.  But now that you know God and he has become intimate with you, why would you abandon him to become slaves again to those weak and pathetic things?  You act as if the most important thing is to properly celebrate the various holidays.  I am afraid that all the work I have done for you might have been wasted.

 

Please, fellow teammates, join with me as I have with you.  Far from rejecting me, the first time I preached the Good News to you (though you could easily have despised me because of my illness), you received me as a messenger of God, or even as Jesus our Champion.  There was joy in you then, and, had you been able to, you would have even plucked out your own eyes and given them to me.  Are we now enemies because I have told you the truth?  The teachers you are now listening to enthusiastically pursue you, but not for a good cause.  They want to alienate you from me, so that you may pursue them alone.  Enthusiasm is only good when it's for a good cause, and then only if you keep it up when I'm away.

 

My dear children, I had thought that I was finished with the labor of bringing you to birth in Christ, but it seems that I have to do it all over again.  I long to be with you, so I wouldn't have to talk this way.  What happened to you?

 

Those of you who want to be bound again to follow God's basic rules, do you realize what those rules say?  In the authoritative writings we read that Abraham had two sons, one born of a servant and one of a free woman.  The servant's son was born by human effort alone, but the free woman's son was born as a result of God's promise.  These are physical representations of spiritual truths, for they represent God's two covenants.  The servant woman, Hagar, represents Mount Sinai in Arabia, where God's people were bound under the authority of the covenant to live according to his basic rules.  She is like the old Jerusalem, and those who still seek to live by those rules are her spiritual children and so are bound in slavery like her.  But the free woman, Sarah, is like God's heavenly Jerusalem, set free by God's promised new covenant and the mother of all who have been so freed.  And there will be many of them, for God tells us in his authoritative writings: "Celebrate your family, you childless single woman who has never given birth, for you will have more children than the married woman."

 

Like Sarah's son Isaac, we, fellow teammates, are children of God's promise.  But then as now, the child born solely of human effort persecuted the child born by the work of God's Spirit.  But the authoritative writings say to us "Send away the servant and her son, for the son of the servant will not inherit with the son of the free woman."  And we, fellow teammates, are not spiritual children of a servant, but of the free woman, with the inheritance that follows.

Colossians 1 - my attempt at a paraphrase/translation in common English.

1. Paul, appointed by God as a representative of the Champion, Jesus, together with Timothy our teammate,
2. to the Champion's faithful teammates in Colossae:  May you know the gracious acceptance and peace of God our Father.
3. Whenever we pray for you, we thank God, the Father of our Commander, Jesus the Champion,
4. for we have heard about your confidence in the Champion Jesus and your love for his team,
5. Your confidence and love spring from the anticipation you have for all the good prepared for you in heaven, which you learned about from the authoritative source, the Good News,
6. which is changing lives throughout the world even as it has changed your lives since you truly grasped the message of God's generosity
7. which our much-loved coworker Epaphras delivered to you.  He serves the Champion faithfully by serving you
8. and has told us about the love God's Spirit has created in you.
9. Ever since he told us, we have asked God in our prayers to give you all the spiritual wisdom and understanding needed to fully know His will,
10. so you will be able to live the kind of lives that reflect well on the Commander, pleasing him in every way, accomplishing all the good that he intends, and coming to know God better and better.
11. May the Father, out of his magnificent resources, strengthen you with all the power you need to joyfully and patiently persevere,
12. as you thank him for allowing you to share in his team's shining inheritance.
13. He has rescued us from the control of darkness and placed us under the rule of the Son he loves,
14. who has freed us from our debt by securing the forgiveness of our unmet obligations to God.
15. Though we can't see God, His Son, whom he has placed in charge of creation, shows us what God looks like.
16. For through the Son and for his sake God created everything in the spiritual and physical realms, whether visible or invisible, including every kind of spiritual power.
17. The Son is the foundation of everything, and he holds everything together.
18. He is the head of his team, the church.  Everything has its beginning in him, including life after death, so he towers over everything.
19. Everything that God is, the Son also is,
20. and it was by bleeding and dying on the cross that the Son ended creation's rebellion and made peace between God and his creation.
21. You, who were part of that rebellion, rejecting God and doing what he hated,
22. are included in the peace that the Son made through his death on the cross, so you are now clean and innocent and fit for God's presence---
23. if, of course, you keep relying confidently on the Son to secure for you the good that is promised in the gospel that was announced to you and to all creation, the gospel that I, Paul, serve.
24. This service involves suffering for your sake, which I am glad to do, for it completes the work that the Champion's suffering did for the sake of his team, the church.
25. God gave me the responsibility of serving you, his church, by fully and accurately delivering to you his message,
26. which reveals to us, his team, a secret that has been unknown until now.
27. God has decided to tell us that he is offering something of immeasurable value and beauty to everyone regardless of nationality, namely the presence of the Champion in them, enabling them to look forward with anticipation to all of the good that heaven offers.
28. We tell everyone about him, doing our best to warn and encourage them, so that we may present them as well trained members of the Champion's team.
29. I work hard at this, laboring with all the energy which he pours into me.

A plan for helping the homeless

My plan is like a salmon ladder. Getting salmon over a dam in the river in a single leap is impossible, but give them a series of smaller steps that they can take and they can get into the lake above. So my steps from unemployment toward self-sufficiency would look something like this:

1) Set aside safe areas (a fenced-in field, parking lot, or the like), for homeless tents so they're not living on the streets. Patrol those areas to keep them drug free and minimize crime. Provide latrines, showers, basic medical care (particularly addressed towards eliminating substance addictions) and food. Periodically clean things up so that vermin aren't attracted. Men and women (with children) would be given separate safe areas. Anyone found sleeping in any other public place would automatically be taken to one of these safe areas and given an 8x8 piece of ground where he can put his stuff and sleep for the night.

2) Evaluate all of the people in the safe area for their potential to take on responsible living. Those who are capable of doing so would get jobs doing the work that the area requires (preparing food, cleaning the latrines, patrolling the area to minimize the crime, etc). As payment for their work, they would get to sleep in a small (8x8) private room (like a KOA camper cabin) in the safe area with a bed and space for their possessions and would get a small stipend with which they could purchase items they need. Mothers with children would be given a double room with beds for the children.

3) The people living in the rooms would be coached on caring for their private space and faithfully doing their jobs. Any personality traits that would make it difficult for the person to hold down a job would be addressed and, if possible, resolved. If the person was successful caring for his space and doing his job, he would be given job skills training and assisted in applying for available jobs that require those skills.

4) Upon getting a job, government funded housing would be obtained for the person close to the job site and public transportation. If necessary a portable tiny home (like this: https://www.thespruce.com/super-affordable-tiny-homes...) would be set up for the person in a nearby parking lot. While living in this housing the person would save up for a deposit on an apartment and to purchase a car (if needed).

5) Continued periodic counseling would be supplied to help the person deal with any other issues that might arise and plan for the future. At the end of one year (more or less), the person would either begin paying for his housing (if it is a permanent apartment not the tiny home) or move into a place of his own.

Only step 5 has a specific timetable associated with it. A person could stay and any of the lower steps for as long as necessary or desired. If someone proved incapable of living appropriately at any step, he would be dropped back to the next lower step. People who dropped out of step 1 would go either to a mental institution or to jail, depending on their reasons for dropping out.

How to destroy a society

• A group with a socially unacceptable lust/desire/passion is identified (or identifies itself).
• Their lust/desire/passion is renamed with a term that has a positive spin and lacks the connotations/baggage the old name had.
• Any known harm caused by the lust is minimized/papered over or spun as a reason for pity, and anything that can be construed as a positive attribute of the lust is magnified.
• The group dominated by the lust is defined in terms of the lust, and it is deemed an essential part of their character.
• The lust group is identified as a minority group and so subject to protection.
• Any social resistance to the lust is defined as oppression, so the minority group is now considered to be oppressed.
• Any opposition to the lust or efforts to remind people of the known harms of the lust is deemed to be hate speech or lust-phobia and thereby suppressed.
• People who oppose the lust are labeled as prudes, bigots and/or oppressors.
• Advocates of the lust self-identify with previous successful and popular liberation groups so as to legitimize their own efforts.
• People in academia publish papers that declare that the lust is actually healthy and a normal part of human society and therefore to be supported and encouraged.
• Exercise of the lust is defined as a human right, and thereby subject to human rights protection.
• Government support is given to the exercise of the lust, in the form of tax benefits, special protections and other endorsements.  Existing programs are specifically amended to include support for the lust.
• Tolerance education is formalized to instruct people (including young children) on how to support and advocate for those possessed by the lust.
• People who still refuse to endorse the lust are subjected to mandatory tolerance education and threatened with loss of employment, deplatformed, or otherwise ostracized.
• Businesses that do not endorse the lust are sued, boycotted, threatened with loss of certification or tax exampt status (if relevant), and slandered on social media.
• Schools adopt tolerance education as part of their curriculum and train up children in tolerance of the lust.

Repeat until done …

Response to Laura Mayo

I have lots of questions about Laura Mayo's article What if white Christians had a more realistic image of Jesus, a dark-skinned, religious-minority refugee?

• How does Natifa know that the man who attacked her is a Christian?  Or is Natifa making the mistake common among people who come from a non-Christian country of assuming all Americans are Christians and judging Christianity accordingly?  If the man is a Christian, what church does he go to?  Is he representative of that church's membership as a whole?
• How many Christians does Natifa encounter in a day?  How many mistreat her?  We are told to not judge Islam by the actions of its extremists (such as those who flew the airplanes into the twin towers and those who routinely persecute and kill Christians in many countries).  Is the author willing to extend the same courtesy to conservative Christians (who appear to be the target of her displeasure) and refrain from judging them by the actions of extremists who call themselves Christian?
• If Natifa were a young white woman wearing a MAGA hat who was attacked by a member of Antifa who claimed to be Christian, would the author feel the same shame on her behalf and the same need to apologize to her?  Would she want her to be safe and feel welcome?
• The author appears to think that people react against Muslims exclusively because of their skin color.  Does she think that there are no other rational grounds for criticizing their beliefs and lifestyle?  Can one criticize Islam (say by pointing out that sharia law is strongly anti-woman, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian and anti-LGBTQ) and not be accused of Islamophobia?
• If the Byzantines (who had similar features to the Jews of Jesus' day) were the first to depict Jesus as white, should we not assume that their reason for doing so had nothing to do with race?  Would it not be more plausible to believe that Jesus' whiteness was a way of portraying his sinlessness (per the Psalms and other passages)?  If so, are European Christians to be blamed for adopting it as a standard in their own portrayals of Jesus?
• The author criticizes "the dominant Christian" culture for twisting the story of Jesus to justify their beliefs and lifestyle.  Is she not also doing the same kind of twisting when she declares that Jesus was persecuted for his religion and gender?  Jesus' family was forced to flee to Egypt not because he was a male Jew, but because Jesus was born King of the Jews.  The man who restored the Jewish temple to magnificence would scarcely have persecuted Jesus for his Jewishness or maleness; he persecuted Jesus because he saw him as a competitor for the throne.
• What sort of "unfair and cruel treatment of LGBTQ persons" does the author have in mind?  Does this include opposition to gay marriage?  Or resistance to having biological males use women's restrooms or compete in women's sports?  Is it unfair and cruel to not want our children to have drag queens read to them in public libraries?  Is it permissible to oppose having children be given sex change operations?
• Is Paul marginalizing and oppressing LGBTQ persons when he says in 1 Corinthians 6:
• 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
• What if the saving grace of Jesus is meant to deliver us from slavery to these kinds of behaviors; washing us clean of them rather than affirming us in them?
• Is it not hateful to tell people that they are free to persist in lifestyles that God has clearly said disqualify them from heaven?  Are we not consigning them to hell by doing so?
• Is it OK to see Jesus' race as largely irrelevant, as this song encourages us to do?  Some Children See Him by James Taylor

Romans 8 in rhyme

From condemnation, accusation

the truth of the gospel frees us

We're freed from the claw of death’s dead law

By the life-giving law of Jesus

What God has done through the Christ His Son

the law in the flesh can’t achieve

Vanquishing sin that corrupts within

Making righteous the ones who believe

Our minds will show where our bodies go

To the flesh or to the Spirit

But life in the flesh results in death

A terrible fate; we should fear it

The Spirit gives life that's free from strife

It’s the only peace we can know

God spurns the plans of the fleshly man

He who follows the world is God’s foe

If our hearts we give to Christ we'll live

For we have his Spirit within

Though in sin we're dead, we need not dread

In the Spirit we are saved from sin

The power that raised Christ from the grave

Will give life to our bodies too

The Spirit, God's breath, saves us from death

Those he dwells in he raises up new

So follow the One who raised the Son

The things of the flesh all decay

Kill every lust, place all your trust

In our God, let us walk in his way

The Spirit now leads the people God's freed

Adopted as His own children

Set free, we're not slaves, no more afraid

But sons of our Father in heaven

As sons we’re heirs, so the Spirit swears

Enjoying Christ’s inheritance

But first comes the cross, with all its loss

Then glory from God’s vast abundance

Life hurts a lot, but it’s just a dot

In the ocean of joy we’ll see

Creation waits for God’s promised date

Longing to finally be set free

Lord, set us free from futility,

Rescue us from corruption

Creation groans, and with it we moan

Impatient to have our adoption

The Spirit sprouts, there’s never a doubt

He’ll redeem our bodies someday

We can’t see it now, but still somehow

We’ll walk patiently along God’s way

We’re too weak to pray, no words to say

The Spirit breathes groans in our stead

But God knows his groans, they are his own

They’re exactly what He would have said

If we love the Lord, all things reward

We are called, and he’s not yet done

From the start he knew what he would do

To make us look like Jesus his Son

A great family is what we’ll be

With Jesus our king and our brother

He’s summoned us near, freed us from fear

And given us glory and splendor

There’s no more to say, God took away

All reasons to send us to hell

He gave us his Son and isn’t yet done

Ev’ry good thing He gives us as well

The people God chose, no more his foes

He washes them, they're clean indeed

Christ Jesus who died is by his side

To ask from God ev’rything they need

Though fear, pain and grief come like a thief

To steal from us the love of God

The powers will see our victory

Creation will rise up and applaud

Though they slay us now, we will somehow

Overcome by means of God’s love

The rulers will fail, Christ will prevail

And unite us with heaven above

Wedding message - Jared and Rachel

The following message contains references to Isaiah 40:6-8, Ephesians 5:22-33, and the hymn "I know that my Redeemer lives" that were read/sung during the service.  Their full text is at the bottom of this document.

In the Roman empire, when a general won a significant victory, a great parade would be staged in his honor.  The general would ride through the streets of Rome on an elaborately decked out chariot, wearing the finest of clothes and accompanied by the highest-ranking prisoners whom he took captive.  But to prevent him from getting too caught up in himself, a slave rode with him in his chariot and whispered in his ear “Remember, you are mortal” throughout the parade.

Jared and Rachel, when I saw the Bible verses that you had selected for your wedding, I was reminded of this slave.  Isaiah 40:6-8 is not a passage normally chosen for a wedding, and it sets a tone somewhat like the slave’s reminder: “Remember, you are mortal.”  In a day of celebration like that of a Roman general’s victory parade, you want us to hear a Bible passage that reminds us that we are mortal, that our lives are brief, and we wither quickly compared with the eternal glory of God.

What is the answer to this reminder of our frailty?  Do we seize the moment, grab every pleasure we can, and enjoy ourselves to the hilt because you only go around once?  Is the answer to eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die?  Surely there will be food and merriment enough at the reception tonight; is that the answer to our mortality?

If that’s all there is, then why would anyone make the vows you are about to make to each other?  Why promise to be faithful to each other “for better, for worse” if the point of life is to maximize our pleasure?  Shouldn’t we do like so many people do these days, and preserve our freedom to jump from one relationship to another if that makes us happy?  A lot of bachelor/ bachelorette parties these days seem calculated to try to persuade the engaged couple that the singles life that they’re leaving is more fun and better than the married life that they’re embarking on; why not stay single if the point of life is to fill it with as much fun as possible before you die?

But most of us know in our hearts that this is not the best response to our mortality.  That’s why we celebrate weddings.  We know that a life of throw-away relationships and endless chasing after pleasure is not satisfying or sustainable.  We know that having someone in your life who has promised to hang with you in good times and in not-so-good times is a precious thing, and we may even realize that one of the most satisfying things we can do with the gifts and talents that God has given us is to invest them in another person.

All of these are excellent reasons to get married, but they don’t necessarily make our mortality any easier to face; in fact they may make it harder.  We get married, we invest our lives in another person, we learn year by year how to live better with each other and how to love each other through thick and thin, then it ends.  Even if we do it all right and our marriage thrives and grows, there will come a time when the phrase “till death do us part” takes a real and painful meaning for us.

6 All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.

If our flesh is the whole of who we are, if our entire existence is bound up in these bodies, made up of frail skin and bones, muscles and organs, then we are nothing.  We fade like the California wildflower superbloom under the desert sun, an indistinguishable blip in the age of the universe, and we are gone.  But the Bible assures us that we are more than flesh, and our life is more than biochemistry.

We are also spiritual, and the spiritual life in us is more fundamental to who we are than the bodies in which it dwells.   In Genesis 2:7 we are told, “the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”  We are bodies made of dust from the ground enlivened by a spirit breathed into us by God.  And the breath with which God breathed life into us is the same breath with which He speaks His word, which is eternal.

But if our spirit is eternal, why do we die?  We die because humanity has lost the immortality we once had.  Not long after they were created, Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s command to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Though God had warned it would kill them, they ate anyhow, and they died.  Their death was not biological; their bodies continued to live for many more years, but spiritual.  From the moment they ate the fruit, their connection to God’s Spirit was lost and they became spiritually dead.  And just as a mother can pass on a drug addiction to her child, Adam and Eve passed on their spiritual death to their children, so we are born spiritually dead.

This is a terrible place to be.  Spiritual death cuts us off from God and makes it impossible for us to live in true harmony with him, with each other, or even with ourselves.  The evils of this world are the result of spiritually dead people like ourselves rebelling against God and hurting other people.  And there’s nothing we can do on our own to fix it.  Dead people cannot resuscitate themselves.  We need a rescuer who can raise dead people to life.  That rescuer is Jesus Christ.

In his life on earth, Jesus Christ raised dead people back to life.  He himself was nailed to a cross and died a horrible death.  On the third day after he was laid in a tomb, he rose to a new and glorious eternal life which he still lives today, sitting on the throne of heaven with God his Father.

And he offers that life to us.  We, who are like wildflowers that bloom in a day then die, may participate now in the life that Jesus has, and, after we die, may be raised to the eternal life that we were made for, to live forever with Jesus in the glory and delight that he enjoys with God.  For this to happen, we must be united with Jesus, and the way we are united with Jesus is in a wedding.

In chapter 21 of the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, the author John gives us a hint of what this wedding will look like, where he writes:

21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

In the end, God makes everything new.  Jerusalem, the city of the people of God, is made new and glorious, and God brings it like a bride to her husband, who is Jesus Christ.  Other places in the Bible describe the church as the bride of Christ; here we see their wedding.

Jared and Rachel, this wedding ceremony is patterned in part after that great and glorious celebration on the day when heaven and earth are made new.  Rachel, you in your beauty are giving us a tiny glimpse of the beauty the people of God will have as the new Jerusalem, and your father was cast in the role of God as he brought you to Jared.  And Jared, you are playing the part of Jesus Christ, as you receive your bride from the hand of her father.  This tradition that we follow in conducting weddings is not merely a beautiful way of bringing people together in marriage, it is a profound illustration of how God unites himself with his people in Jesus Christ.

And the roles that you are playing here don’t end when you walk down the aisle.  Jared, you will still have the role of Christ to Rachel, and Rachel, you will still have the role of the church to Jared throughout your married life.  The passage from Ephesians 5 that was read earlier in this service shows us how this is to be done.

Jared, your part is to love Rachel as Christ loved the church.  Your model is Christ washing his disciples’ feet, Christ feeding them, Christ teaching them, Christ dying for them.  As Paul told us in Philippians chapter 2,

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Your goal in all of this is nourish her and cherish her; to help her to thrive, that she might be as beautiful as God intends for her to be.  This is what Christ did for his people, at great cost to himself, and this is what you are to do for Rachel, whatever it may cost you.

Rachel, your part is to submit to Jared’s leadership.  The word “submit” has become so toxic these days that it is scarcely possible for some to hear it without clenching up inside.  It feels like being defeated, vanquished, abused, and even humiliated.  Though it should not be necessary to say this, this is not what Paul is asking of wives, nor what a husband who is loving his wife as Christ loves the church would ever think of doing to his wife.

It may help us to think of a really good swing dancing team.  When we watch two swing dancers on the floor, we see the man leading the woman, and she in turn following his lead, not because she has been defeated, abused or humiliated, but because she trusts the man to be leading in a way that will make her look good.  This is what Christ is doing for his church, seeking to “present the church to himself in splendor”, and it is what Jared will be seeking to do for you.  Your job is to follow his lead, and to use the service that he offers you to do beautiful things that would never be possible on your own.

But both of you will find that all of this is impossible on your strength alone.  We are not good enough, wise enough, strong enough or patient enough to love our wives as Christ loved the church or to submit to our husbands as unto the Lord.  It is only because “your Redeemer lives”, as we sang in that hymn, and he is working in your lives to make this kind of goodness possible that you have any hope of success in this endeavor.

So this is my charge to you, Jared and Rachel, as frail children of a mighty God who has taken you up into his life – find your strength in the Lord, and press on.  Excel still more.  Learn to love each other better, to serve each other better, to respect and cherish each other better.  Keep looking for reasons to be grateful for what the Lord is doing in your lives and what your spouse is doing for you, then say thanks for those good things.  Press on with the hope of the glory set before you, the glory of the wedding supper of Jesus Christ, in which His church, of which you are a part, will be united with Him forever in a joy that transcends even the joy that you feel today.   Do all of this to the glory of the God who saves you, and for the blessing of His people, who will see in you a hint of his love for us.

I Know That My Redeemer Lives

I know that my Redeemer lives
What comfort this sweet sentence gives
He lives, he lives Who once was dead
He lives, my ever living Head

He lives triumphant from the grave
He lives eternally to save
He lives, my mansion to prepare
He lives to lead me safely there

He lives and grants me daily breath
He lives and I shall conquer death
He lives, and while He lives I'll sing
He lives, my Prophet, Priest and King

He lives, all glory to His Name
He lives, my Jesus still the same
And oh, the sweet joy this sentence gives
I know that my Redeemer lives

Isaiah 40:6-8

40:6 A voice says, Cry!
And I said, What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.

Ephesians 5:22-33

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Memorial service message

Welcome to the memorial service for R.  A memorial service is a time for remembering and reflecting.  We remember the life that R lived and reflect on the implications of his death for all of us.

R mattered to people.  His military service mattered to those he worked with.  His work as a mechanic mattered to those whose equipment he repaired and maintained.  His motorcycle racing made him a significant part of that community, and his love for being around people and helping them when he could made a difference in many people’s lives.  For these things we can be grateful.  It strengthens our community and enriches our lives to have people around who are willing to fix what’s broken, to give counsel where they can, and to invest a portion of their lives in military service to defend our country.

But R is dead.  No longer can he do the things that he did to contribute to people’s lives.  As his cancer was killing him, it was taking away his ability to make a difference in these ways.  This is a loss.  Some of you have felt this loss for a while, as the man who loved to help people, to fix things, to grill, to ride his motorcycle and to go to the movies gradually disappeared.  And the more you appreciated his contributions to your life, the more painful it will be to see that taken away.  When love is deep, grief will also be deep, for we must come to grips with the loss of much good that we had enjoyed in having a person in our lives who is no longer there.

x

There are other reasons for grief as well.  You may have wanted something from R that there is now no hope of ever receiving.  You may have wanted to give him something that he is now no longer able to receive.  Whatever the cause, grief is a natural and normal response to someone’s death, and it is important to acknowledge this.  And sometimes grief comes before the person dies, as we see the effects of the fatal disease taking its toll and suffer the loss of much of what made that person special to us before the person actually dies.  We may do our grieving ahead of time, and when the funeral comes, we may be largely done with grief.

So, as we remember R, and we reflect on the implications of his death for us, we may experience both gratitude for what his life meant for us and grief for the lost possibilities resulting from his death.  Beyond that, we are forced to come to grips once more with the fact that this story is repeated in every one of our lives.  We are born, we have a chance to enjoy life for a while and make whatever contribution we can to the lives of others, then we die and all contributions we make by our life are over.  The great prophet Moses, who lived over three thousand years ago, described it this way in in the Bible in Psalm 90:

The days of our lives add up to seventy years,

or eighty if one is especially strong.

But even one’s best years are marred by trouble and oppression.

Yes, they pass quickly and we fly away.

…

So teach us to consider our mortality,

So that we might live wisely.

Three thousand years later, our life expectancy hasn’t changed much at all; we get seventy or eighty years on this earth, and then it’s over.

But it isn’t over when it’s over.  The upcoming Easter holiday teaches this, for it is not so much about eggs and bunnies as it is about the commemoration of Jesus Christ, who, after being crucified and buried in a grave, rose from the grave in a new and transformed life which he makes available to his people.  This short, troublesome life that Moses describes is only prologue, a first small step of our vast existence which will continue forever in the life to come.  When we fly away from this world, we are entering a deeper reality, for we are flying into the presence of the creator of the universe, God himself, and his son Jesus Christ.

Even now, R is having this encounter.  We don’t know much about what this experience will be like, but we do know that it will be awesome; far more awesome than meeting Oprah, or Mark Zuckerberg, or LeBron James, or the president or the pope.  There’s no meeting we could have with anyone in this life that would be nearly as awesome as meeting God.  The last book of the Bible, Revelation, tells of one such meeting in which John, the author, describes Jesus this way:

14 His head and hair were as white as wool, even as white as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame. 15 His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.

John was blown away, and we would be too by such an encounter.

How do we approach such a God as this?  We can’t even approach the powerful people in this life so easily; they live in gated communities with walls around their homes and body guards keeping little people like us away.  How then do we approach God?

Even with the powerful people of this world, there are little people who can approach them, namely their children.  President Trump’s children have ready access to him. So do Mark Zuckerberg’s.  If you’re part of the family, you belong, and you can have access that no one else gets.

So it is with God; if you’re part of His family you get access to him.  Jesus Christ, God’s Son, gets complete access to God.  What’s more, Jesus makes it possible for us to be adopted into God’s family so we can be God’s children too and get the same access he does.

But how are we adopted into God’s family?  It can’t be by paying our way in.  If a child on the street came up to me and said, “Here’s $50, I want to be adopted into your family,” I’d say, “No way – go home to your own family.”  And that’s what God will say to us if we tell him, “Here’s all the good stuff I did, now adopt me into your family.”  But if we become friends with God’s son Jesus Christ, and he goes to his Father and tells him, “this person is a friend of mine and I want him to be adopted into our family,” then God listens to him and will adopt us into his family.

A thief who was crucified along with Jesus shows us how this is done, for he could say to another criminal being crucified, “We are getting what we deserve for what we have done, but this man [he’s talking about Jesus] has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

He told Jesus that he deserved punishment for the bad things he had done and asked Him to remember him.  This was how the thief became friends with Jesus, and it will be how we do it too.  And if we are friends of Jesus, and through Jesus are adopted into God’s family, then God will welcome us into his household when this life is over, and we will enjoy his company and the company of his family forever.  And it will be wonderful.  Nothing in this life can be compared with the joy of that experience.  If you combine the joy of a wedding, the Super Bowl celebration, the victory day parade after WWII and a super graduation party and then multiply it all times a thousand, you might get a hint of what heaven’s joy will be like.  It will be filled with love and beauty, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and all the sorrow and heartache we have ever felt will be swallowed up in an endless celebration of the goodness and magnificence of God.

So in this memorial service for R, not only do we remember the life that R lived and reflect on its significance for us, but we look forward with hope to a glorious celebration to which all who are invited who are friends of Jesus.  Let us pray.

Plot synopsis

A priest's younger brother runs off with a woman from a gang.  They live together, she gets pregnant and then both of them get sick from a dangerous disease that is going around.  The baby gets born with serious disfiguring deformities and, with his last breath, the brother asks the priest to care for the baby.  Having no wife and no good place to keep such a child as this, the priest still agrees and cares for and instructs the boy as he would his own son.  Knowing that the boy would attract hostility because of his deformities, he keeps him in the church, and warns him that it would be dangerous for him to go outside because of the way people would treat him.

As was the custom of the city in which the priest lived, an annual festival is underway in which the gangs roam freely through the streets, fascinating people with magic tricks, getting drunk, soliciting sex from strangers and robbing passers-by when the opportunity arises.  Angry about how this kind of behavior had damaged his own family and concerned about the damage it could cause to his community, the priest finally makes up his mind to ask the king to outlaw this festival.

His nephew, having become a very strong adolescent, become restless in his confinement, looks out on the celebration and thinks to himself how much fun it would be to be down there on the streets with all the excitement and activity.  Rebelling against his uncle, he sneaks out of the church and into the crowds.  As his uncle had warned him, the boy is badly abused by a gang and his uncle, hearing about this, at considerable risk to himself, has to go into the crowds to rescue the boy and return him to the safety of the church.  In this he is aided by a young woman in the gang, who feels guilty about the abuse her fellow gang members heaped on the boy.

The priest was not unscathed, however, by this encounter. His close proximity to this attractive young woman, who cared for his son like a mother when others were cruel to him, awakens in him a powerful desire to have her for his own.  He now finds himself consumed with the memory of her presence and struggles to remain faithful to his vows.  She, on the other hand, concerned for the boy and  increasingly uncomfortable with her lifestyle, comes to the priest's church one day to see how he is doing and seek help in finding a different way.  Shocked to see her there, the priest nevertheless recovers himself enough to offer to teach her about the ways of God, but he is unable to conceal the desire that her presence triggers in him.  She, recognizing the signs, flees the church and he, angry at himself and her, warns her never to return.

Torn between his desire for the woman and the demands of his vocation, the priest prays but finds no relief.  Horrified by the power his desire has over him, the priest convinces himself that the woman had used her magic to ensnare him and determines not only to outlaw the festival, but to drive the gangs out of the town and destroy the woman.  He persuades the king to give him a military force for this purpose and sets out on his mission.  Coming to a brothel that is run by the gang members, the priest demands that they turn over the woman to him.  When they refuse, he orders that the place be burned down.  The captain of his military force (who had visited this brothel previously for "recreation") refuses, and the priest, infuriated by the insubordination, strips the captain of his command and has the building burned.

The captain is injured during this encounter and the young woman takes him to the church to seek the boy's help in caring for him and out of a vague hope that the church might provide a sanctuary for them.  When it becomes obvious that she can't stay, she gives the boy a map of where to find her and flees the church.  The priest shows up soon afterwards, suspicious that the boy is sympathetic to the woman, and the boy conceals the captain and denies any involvement with the woman.  Not convinced, the priest decides to trap them by announcing that he knows where she is hiding and will send a force there tomorrow to root them out.  Wanting to warn gang members, the boy and the captain follow the map to their hideout, where they are promptly captured by the gang and sentenced to be hung.  The woman shows up and persuades the gang that the captain and the boy are friends and has them released.  The priest then arrives, having followed the boy and the captain, and he has his force arrest the entire gang.

Having imprisoned both the woman and the captain, the priest then offers to set them both free in return for her company.  Indignant, the woman refuses, and the priest has them both confined together.  The captain tries to persuade her to take up the priest's offer to save her life, while the woman contemplates doing so to save the captain's life.  The following morning, the captain is released and the priest offers the woman one last chance for life on the same terms.  She spits in the priest's face, and he in rage has her burned.  The boy, who has been struggling to find courage to try to rescue the woman, finally runs to the pyre, frees her and takes her back into the church, where she dies after thanking him.  The priest sends the military force into the church to capture them, but they are repelled when the boy pours molten lead from a high window onto them.  The priest, however, is able to enter and he tries to persuade his nephew that all is well and life can continue as it had previously now that the woman is dead, but the boy calls his uncle a monster and throws him out of a high window to his death.

And they close, singing "who is a monster and who is a man?"

Thoughts about John chapter 3 (inspired by this morning's sermon)

In chapter 3 of the gospel of John, Jesus is approached by Nicodemus, a man who is described as a Pharisee (the strictest group of Jews in Jesus' day), a member of the Jewish ruling council (the highest governing body in Jewish society) and "the teacher of Israel" (an esteemed authority on religious matters).  He starts the conversation by saying, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.”  From his standpoint, he was honoring Jesus by calling him Rabbi (even though Jesus had no official credentials within Jewish academic circles that would entitle him to such a title) while displaying his own credentials as one who represents the top academic circles in Israel, people qualified to make such a judgment about Jesus.

But Jesus knows the hearts of the Pharisees, how they will go toe-to-toe with him over his healing on the Sabbath, how they'll attribute his work to the devil, how they'll excommunicate people who believe in him, and how they'll finally join the chorus of people who demand that he be crucified.  So when Nicodemus, says "We know that you are from God," Jesus pushes back hard by replying, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above [or "born again"], he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  In effect, he's saying, "You guys who think you are qualified to evaluate me as a spiritual teacher can't even see what I'm doing unless you're spiritually reborn."

This knocks Nicodemus back on his heels.  Far from getting appreciation from Jesus for his generous acknowledgement of Jesus' teaching ability, he has been told that he and his peers are utterly unqualified to evaluate Jesus, and have to become spiritual infants in a second birth before they can even begin to understand who Jesus is.  So he reacts with incredulity by parodying what Jesus says; "What do you mean - crawl back into my mother's womb and be born once more?"  Of course he knows that Jesus doesn't mean this, but he wants to deflect the accusation that he's incompetent to evaluate Jesus by making Jesus look silly and this is the best way he can find to do it.

But Jesus won't be deflected.  He drives his message home harder, by saying: “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit."  Evaluating Jesus is a spiritual matter and must be done by people who have spiritual life in them.  For a person who is only born of water (that is to say, through normal human conception and birth) to judge Jesus would be as hopeless as for a dead person to evaluate a living person.  We are born spiritually dead and, just as we received biological life from our parents, we must receive spiritual life from God before we can evaluate spiritual people like Jesus.  Otherwise their behavior is as mysterious to us as the movement of the wind, for, as Jesus goes on to tell Nicodemus, "The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus is now entirely out of his depth, only being able to reply with the weak question, "how can this be?"  He is now where Jesus wants him to be, admitting his inability to understand what Jesus is doing, and Jesus affirms his ignorance with the question, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?"  But in case Nicodemus think that his ignorance is innocent, Jesus goes on to say that the ignorance of Nicodemus and his peers is is not simply a lack of information, but a rejection of the truth.  "I tell you the solemn truth,", Jesus says, "we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony."  Nicodemus and his fellow Jewish teachers should have recognized that Jesus was no freelance rabbi needing to be welcomed into the official guild, but that he was far above any official guild and the appointed teachers of Israel needed to sit at Jesus' feet and learn from him.

Jesus then asks Nicodemus, "If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven – the Son of Man."  The fact that Nicodemus and his peers didn't see how far Jesus was above them was a moral failure on their part and makes it impossible for them to learn from him.  He alone was qualified to teach them about heavenly things, yet they wouldn't even sit at his feet and learn earthly things from him, let alone the things of heaven.

Jesus goes on to say, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”  Jesus must be lifted up in their conception of him before they can truly believe in him in a life-giving way.  This is the thrust of what Jesus goes on to say in his famous statement in John 3:16: "For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."  Those who believe in Jesus, who see Him as he truly is, lifted up above all things, and are willing to sit humbly at his feet to learn from Him and follow Him, will not perish, but will have eternal life.  But not everyone is willing to do this, for being born again entails becoming small and dependent, losing our prestige and authority, and learning again to humbly receive teaching that we cannot obtain any other way.

 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. 18 The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. 21 But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.

These days it's easy to be a spiritual authority.  We tell one another what we think God would say or do and are taken with complete seriousness.  Everyone is qualified to say "my god would never..." or "of course god wants us to ..." without needing to appeal to any higher authority than our own desires and intuitions.  We freely correct Jesus when he gets something wrong, and are perfectly happy to choose from a smorgasbord of available religious teachings the ones that suit our taste and fancy.  But this is the road to death.  Rather than sit in the light of Jesus' judgment of us, we prefer the darkness of our judgment upon him, perhaps following Nicodemus in magnanimously admitting that Jesus is a teacher from God, or perhaps more critically declaring that his teachings are deficient and others are more worthy of our allegiance.  But only by being reborn in the Spirit can we see Jesus for who he is, the Son of Man come down from heaven, and abandon the folly of passing judgment upon him.  Only as our hearts are made alive in Christ will we see Jesus clearly enough to realize that all of our judgments of him are foolishness, and our right position before him is as a humble student and follower of him, seeking to learn true wisdom from the only one qualified to dispense it.